Blog of the Jawaharlal Nehru University unit of the Students' Federation of India.

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

SFI Pamphlet dated 29 August 2012

Over the past three days, we have been
witness to the AISA – the student outfit of an insignificant sectarian left
force in the country – making tall claims regarding the “achievements” of the
Students’ Union they have been leading. The biggest of these claims is that the
issue of discrimination against students from deprived sections and backward
regions in the viva voce for entrance examinations has been addressed “for the
first time in JNU’s history”. They claim that in the past forty years, unions
led by SFI-AISF have not addressed this issue at all. This is nothing but a blatant
falsification of history.

The legacy of SFI-AISF-led unions in
the fight for a socially just, inclusive admission policy

Way
back in 1972-73, the JNUSU advocated a new admission policy which would enable
students from poorer backgrounds and backward regions to enter JNU. It was the
first major struggle led by the JNUSU, and it resulted in a path-breaking
admission policy being adopted by the university, according to which weightages
were given for students from deprived socio-economic backgrounds and those
hailing from backward regions. Student-faculty committees (SFCs) were also set
up with elected students in each centre.
During the term of the 1973-74 union, the admission procedure was
regularised with the students having a say through the SFCs, which would
scrutinise the entrance tests and finalise the results.Members
from the SFCs used to be present when the viva voce was held to ensure that
discrimination or harassment did not occur.A very important upshot
of this admission policy was that the representation of students from the deprived
sections was more than the proportions mandated by the Constitution later on. We
believe that any genuine effort to prevent social discrimination in the viva
voce must entail not only the reduction of the weightage given to viva voce,
but also bringing back the role of the SFCs in sitting through the viva voce.

It
was the alarm of the ruling classes in the increased empowerment of the
deprived sections that led to the scrapping of the Old Admission Policy in 1983,
when there was a brutal police crackdown on student activists in an attempt to
break the back of student militancy, and the university was closed down sine
die.

And
yet the AISA, which was born in the crucible of the notorious anti-Mandal
agitation, shamelessly claims that in the forty years of its activism in the
campus, SFI has been oblivious to the concerns of SC/ST/OBC/PH students in this
campus. In fact the AISA’s
failure in ensuring the timely and correct implementation of OBC reservations
in JNU is consistent with their positions over the years. Vinod Mishra, the then
General Secretary of the CPI-ML Liberation (AISA’s parent party) had written in
1990: “Just as we do not approve of those politicians who want to take
revenge on the present-day progeny of Babar, we also reject those theoreticians
who would punish the present-day offsprings of Manu for the crimes of their
ancestors.” (CPI(ML) Liberation Central Committee’s Message to the IPF
Rally held on 8 October 1990, Liberation, November 1990, http://cpiml.org/archive/vm_swork/3central_committee.htm). He continued in a similar vein: “Students
and youth, particularly in and around Delhi, felt badly betrayed by a man (VP
Singh) on whom they had reposed great faith... Instead, they found in him a
scheming politician who was robbing them of whatever little job opportunities
that were there.” ("The Fall of VP Singh and After", Liberation,
January 1991, http://cpiml.org/archive/vm_swork/4fall_of_vp_singh_and_after.htm). This is exactly the logic that the
casteist Youth For (In)Equality had given while opposing OBC reservations –
that reservations mean robbing the youth of their opportunities in education
and employment.Kavita Krishnan, then the National President
of AISA, had said after her organisation’s victory in the JNUSU elections in
2007, “AISA did not press for a pro or anti stand on quota” (interview given
to the Times of India, September 7, 2007).

We
appeal to the student community to remain vigilant against the devious politics
of the AISA and to unite in the continuing fight for a socially just and
equitable admission policy.